Unpretentious Adaptation

I have just started reading a novel called Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. At first I wasn’t fully content with my decision to read this, since its not the kid of genre I usually enjoy. But seriously, since the fist sentences of the book I was hooked. There is nothing in particular that make the beginning special, but something did and I enjoyed it.

It’s about this man, Deo who came to New York, at about his 30’s I’m guessing. After six months on the run, from Burundi where at the time (1994) it was in horrible conditions with war and deaths. He arrives to America with almost nothing. Now, right there the story already gets even more intriguing, we all want to know how a guy, that by the way, knows no English since his native language is French, will survive in a place like America, and much worst, New York!

When Deo first came to New York, at the airport he met a guy, Muhammad, who I like to believe is his some kind of guardian angel, since Muhammad pretty much saved Deo. He gave him a place to stay while he settled, and helped him get a job. Although probably Muhammad will be a nobody in a couple of chapters, right now he is the savior.

The first time Deo went to find a job, Muhammad had kind of given him directions of how to get there. However New York is not a simple city and much less for a tourist whose never been to America. So as you can imagine Deo got lost, and wasted the whole day on the subway trying to find his way back. I can really assimilate to this since I am a person who gets lost really easily. Although the author makes an excellent job describing Deo’s experience, I can completely understand how he feels like, and it’s definitely not a good feeling. A mixture of being confused and paranoid and disoriented is simply horrible. But it was here that we see how Deo’s personality is. He never panicked, just kept trying, and he learned street names and images for potential use, when he was to take the subway again. Deo is definitely a smart and brave man.

We can also see how Deo compares the city to where he used to live, remembering his native birthplace, and seeing how similar yet extremely different they are. “…He was met by a noise as loud and constant the waterfall on the Siguvyaye River, but much less peaceful: a mingled noise of car horns and sirens and shouts and babbling voices and a blaring…” (Pg.15) What is interesting is that he doesn’t connect his assimilation with any war nor death scene he must have lived in Burundi, but to beautiful waterfalls from nature. When the reality is horrible, n this cases he chooses to forget it. Something that seems even worse is how he is sanding there in the street, and everyone else beside him, yet nobody knows his story; in fact, most of America didn’t even know the situation of Africa at that time.

Vocabulary

Tenement (n): a piece of land held by an owner.

Remnant (n): a small remaining quantity of something.

Blare (v): make or cause to make a loud, harsh sound.

Importance of The Bug

The Year the Monarchs Didn't Appear by: Jim Robbins

Nowadays people don’t actually pay much attention to the environment. Sure, everyone talks about it being important and crucial, and whatever else these people think sound appropriate to say they say. But do people really mean it? Or, even better, do people actually do something about it? Yeah, probably not.

Well I guess at least it means something that people are talking about the environment. But the again, do they really know what they are talking about? And again, probably not. What people think they know about global warming and fossil fuels and pollution, is simply just that. But there are much more crucial details we have to pay attention to, affecting the environment and the world. For example one that really called my attention, that fact that the monarch butterflies are appearing in much less quantities each year.

The fact that barely 5% of last years 60 million butterflies showed up this year, later than they usually do means something. And I believe that it is a really important subject we must pay more attention to. Companies and businesses are worried about how much money they will earn this year, instead of how will they work to be friendly to the planet. And at a point like this one, where our environment is crucial to our survival, and where our environment is as fragile and damaged as it is, there is no time to think simply about money.

What called my attention the most was when Robbins mentions the Roundup. And how this chemical that is obviously lab made, to kill all plants except the crops meant to be planted. Well this also means death of insects of the area and their source of food. Now, that may seem like no big deal. But if it’s happening all over the US and who know where else, it is a big deal. “Insects help stitch together the web of life with essential services, breaking plants down into organic matter… some 80 percent of our food crops are pollinated by insects, primarily the 4,000 or so species of the flying dust mops called bees” says Jim Robbins, and if all this insects will soon disappear, from what Robbins talks about in his article, we are kind of damned.

It does sound absurd, but Robbins has a point when he agrees with Dr. Tallamy, mankind does depend on bugs. And we have to make this notice. The good thing is, we can make a difference, and there people already doing so. ”It’s a cause everyone with a garden or yard can serve. And he says support for it needs to develop quickly to slow down the worsening crisis in biodiversity.” So yes, we can help and we must, because mankind depends on it.

Deciphering Comedies

Lately I’ve been seriously addicted to a comedy show: New Girl. It’s about this girl, Jess who is looking for an apartment and ends up living in a loft with three other guys who are best friends. There’s Schmidt, the guy with the money that insists on everything having to be perfect, who is kind of in love with Cece, the model, which is Jess’s best friend. There’s Winston the ex basketball player. And Nick the really disorganized guy who hasn’t figured out his life yet, and who has a mutual attraction to Jess.

I’ve never really paid much attention o why and how comedies are so funny and inviting to people. But after reading chapter twenty of Thank You For Arguing, everything makes much more sense. All comedies have this repetitive script, just like chick flicks, and romantic novel. I’m not saying they’re necessarily telling the same story, just that the story line is really similar. Well as romantic stories always begin with the girl hating the guy and then reaching a problem, ending with them falling in love and blah blah blah. Comedies, as I learned, also have certain trick that Shakespeare used many years ago. And these are some examples of what I got out of one episode of New Girl.

The episode I analyzed was about Jess being mad with Cece because Cece had become rather superficial after becoming a model, but Jess screws up and has to make up to Cece. In the other side, Schmidt is infuriated with Nick because he claims he love Nick, but Nick doesn’t feel the same way about Schmidt. And Winston is just in the background supporting Schmidt.

The fist figure I got out of this episode was when Winston was trying to make a point to Nick, and he did so by denying what Nick was saying, and by using a low tone-turning the volume down.

NICK: Nobody buys people cookies for no good reason.

WINSTON: You sill don’t get it, do you?

NICK: Nobody!

WINSTON: That wasn’t a cookie that was a piece of his heart, now if you don’t mind, GOOD NIGHT.

Now, before this argument started, Schmidt had given a cookie to nick, but Nick hadn’t put much importance to it. Also Winston had emphasized to Nick how rood he was for never saying good night to him. That would explain the ending of the argument. Even though this is a really silly argument, that is kind of the point, and Nick ends up feeling guilty at the end of the scene, while Winston ends up sounding more reasonable.

Another example, more to the end of the episode was when Nick finally tried to be nice, and bought a cookie for Schmidt, but Schmidt seemed insulted.

SCHMIDT: This is so terrible!

NICK: You gave me a cookie, I gave you a cookie.

NICK: You gave me a cookie,  gave you cookie.

NICK: Gave me cookie,  got you cookie.

NICK: You gave me a cookie, I got you a cookie man.

NICK: You gave me a cookie, I gave you a cookie. We’re even!

NICK: We’re even Schmidt!

NICK: What do you want from me Schmidt!

Here the opposite happened, Nick amplified the argument to prove his point. At the begging he said it real low, and with every new phrase he amplified the volume, until he was just screaming. He got to a climax and “used overlapping words in successive phrases to effect a rhetorical crescendo”.(Pg. 225)

Although this script might seem incredibly silly, it works perfectly. We can see how scripts for comedies are created taking this, many year old tools, and creating pieces that attract audiences by using these figures. Now I can be able to say every time I’m watching a comedy, every technique that is used. Although I will probably get hit in the face by whoever is watching it with me, because, nobody really cares about that stuff, only if you know what it is, and then it’s really interesting.

Validate Your Argument

After reading chapters 15 & 16 of Thank You For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, what came to my attention the most were, the 7 ways Heinrichs came up with, that break deliberative argument, plus, the concept of rhetorical virtue and disinterest. To get things straight, there’s no wrong in rhetoric, since there are no rules. But without the avoidance od this “deadly sins” as Heinrichs calls them in pg. 170, the dynamics of any argument will be lost.

So, thing to avoid while argumentation involve (Pg. 170):

1.     Switching tenses away from the future.

2.     Inflexible insistence on the rules (refusing to hear the other side)

3.     Humiliation (argument that sets out only to debase someone, not to make a choice.)

4.     Innuendo (to insult, simply reduce opponent and not to persuade.)

5.     Threats (not give a choice.)

6.     Nasty language or signs.

7.     Utter stupidity.

Simply what Heinrichs is trying to say is, no argument will end up successful for you- or for your opponent in any matter, if you low yourself into using any of these “sins”. For example I was once having a rather silly argument with my younger brother. Even though it sound ridiculous, (probably because it is) mostly because I am supposed to be the older one and not lower my self to such situations, we were genuinely fighting about weather we should spend the day at the mall or at karts. Obviously I was the one that wanted to go to the mall, after all why would I like to drive sweaty cars with a bunch of little boys.

            The argument could have gone much smother if I hadn’t been so mad at my younger brother at the time, and probably the day could have gone the way I wanted it to. But no, I was mad and just wanted him to feel bad, which was my main goal. That right there, was where the argument flawed, since my final goal wasn’t to go to the mall, but to make him feel bad. So with the bad techniques I applied, led the argument to failure, and clearly we ended up not going to the mall.

Firs of all I just started kind of judging him and his decisions of wanting to go to karts. Therefore using humiliation, Heinrichs third sin. Afterwards I just started screaming and wouldn’t let him speak or even argument back. This would be the third sin. So I wasn’t using one fowl, but two, making this a horrible deliberative argument. Clearly I ended up losing, since my mom just got pissed at me and took us to karts. Finally I understood there’s no point in arguing it you are going to do it the inefficient way.

In this argument situation we could also apply the concepts of disinterest, talked about in chapter 16. We already know that ethos starts with what the audience needs, so if I where to know –which I did- that my brothers final goal was to ride karts that day I could have switched my supposed “goal” of my argument. In other words, manipulate my brother through disinterest.

When I watched the video Bill O'Reilly vs. Jon Stewart Over Muslim Terrorism I clearly saw how ethos, does provide a liar detector. When O’Reilly detected a kind of lie, in Stuart when he in other words claimed he supported the Middle East. That although Stuart was fair to the Muslims, he didn’t really sustain his argument when there was conflict.